THE MAPLE AND THE SYCAMOKE. 137 



leaf of the grape-vine. The leaf, that is to say, has 

 about five great promontory-like projections, up to 

 the point of every one of which runs an indepen- 

 dent vein. The sycamore has the lobes acute ; in 

 the maple they are obtuse. In both trees, more- 

 over, the leaves grow in pairs, whereby the syca- 

 more is at once distinguished from that majestic 

 exotic, the plane, in which they are disposed singly 

 and alternately. There is no sort of relationship 

 between the sycamore and the plane. Hence it is so 

 much the more regretful that a tree of such ancient 

 fame, consecrated alike by tradition, poetry, and 

 philosophy, for they were planes which constituted 

 the sacred groves and colonnades of the Academia, 

 should have had confounded with it one of preten- 

 sions so inferior. Not that the sycamore is an un- 

 worthy tree. The dimensions it attains are often 

 truly grand, and standing alone upon the sward of 

 a park, where its imposing outline can be well 

 realized, .it has qualities, in regard to the pic- 

 turesque, excelled by none. We must never judge 

 of trees from the deformed and stunted examples 

 that occur in hedgerows and in suburban gardens, or 

 even from those which occur in plantations, nor al- 

 ways even from foresters. Trees, to develop their- 

 princely or queenly nature, as the case may be, require 

 space, the free circling around and through them of 

 nourishing winds, plenty of sunlight, to be unsoiled, 

 and to be refreshed by gentle rain. Good timber 



